Synonyms

Historical Background

Discovery and isolation of insulin from pancreatic extract in 1922 (Banting et al. 1922) offered life-saving opportunities to diabetes mellitus patients and sparked active research on its mechanism of action. It was not until 1949 that Levine et al. (1949) identified significant reduction of blood sugar following intravenous administration of insulin to dogs, suggesting that insulin facilitates transfer of hexoses across cell membranes. This raised “the question of mechanism by which a molecule of the insulin type may affect the transfer of substances” (Levine et al. 1949). The idea of insulin receptor (IR) was hovering in the air for over two decades. In 1970, binding of radiolabeled insulin to rat liver plasma membranes was demonstrated (House and Weidemann 1970). Soon after, saturable, reversible, and high-affinity (KD = 7 × 10−11 M to 3 × 10−9M) binding of insulin to...

De Meyts P. Insulin/receptor binding: the last piece of the puzzle?: what recent progress on the structure of the insulin/receptor complex tells us (or not) about negative cooperativity and activation. BioEssays. 2015;37:389–97.CrossRefPubMedGoogle Scholar